William Shakespeare’s Hamlet Essay Example for Free

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet Essay The tone of William Shakespeares Hamlet is set by the theme of madness and deception. The death of Hamlets father and the appearance of his ghost to his son sets into motion a series of events that end in leads to the near total destruction of the Danish court. No one proves to be safe from the pervasive nature of their own guilt, real or imagine, as the characters fall victim to Hamlets madness and the kings deception. Revenge and fear, in particular, play central roles in the eventual conclusions of the play, as it provides a vehicle for the concepts of madness and deceit, as well as the bloody and darkening shadow that falls upon Denmark itself. Even before he sees his fathers ghost among the castle walls, the seeds of suspicion and disgust have already grown to fruition within Hamlets mind. All that is needed to touch off this dark depression into full-blown action is a spark. This spark comes in the form of the deceased king, who gives voice to his sons suspicions. Its interesting, given the full blown form that Hamlets madness later takes, to consider that the conversation between father and ghost may have been a delusion. Though its hard to write off the apparition itself as false, since it is the guards who first see the ghost walking silently, the conversation between father and son is private and serves to provide justification for Hamlets later actions. In this way, its possible that this conversation was simply the beginning point for Hamlets growing insanity. From this first act, the other events fall in quick succession as though predicted. Death becomes a central almost fated result of the lethal mixture of Hamlets growing insanity and the guilt of the king There is a fine line between Hamlets realities and his delusions, as shown in the truth of his uncles deceit. Its important that the tragedy of Hamlet begins and ends with death, providing a full-circle to the Kings murder of his brother and Hamlets own revenue and death. This is due in part to the larger significance of death both as an ending and a beginning. The tragedy of Hamlet itself begins and ends with death while the dead themselves provide witnesses. Its important to note that even as the death should be released by the chain of events, they are not allowed to truly rest. From Hamlets father the king, to Ophelias drowned memory, they are allowed little reprieve. Instead their deaths act as cataclysms for more tragedy and death. It is Ophelia and Poloniuss deaths that cause Laertes to meet his death at the end of Hamlets poison-tipped blade. Connected to the idea of revenge, the dead are fuel to the fire and darkness that seep into the minds and actions of all involved. Given the heavy presence of death, it is no wonder that the images of darkness and the adjective â€Å"black† is repeated throughout the book. It seems to be almost an eternal night in Hamlets Denmark. There is no comfort. There is no hope, only sadness and death. Revenge, madness, and pride are connected in Hamlet through their common dark designs and darker endings. The need for revenge, which is bred from Hamlets encounter with his fathers ghost and eventually drives his madness, is not justice. This revenge is part duty, part self-preservation. Hamlet is lost in his new role in his family, with his mothers marriage to his uncle and the usurpation of the crown from Hamlets own head. In taking action against his uncle, Hamlet is defending the honor of his family and attempting to reclaim his own self which has been lost (I. iv. ll. 21). With the new developments, Denmark itself has become a prison (II. ii. ll. 241), and he is a prisoner to the awareness of his position and the growing need to exact revenge. It is important to make the distinction between the two, revenge and justice. Hamlet is seeking to right the wrong of his fathers death, at first through revelation but then when this fails through violence. There is not the sense that Hamlet expects to escape his own death in the process of exacting revenge but at the same time there is the maddened sense of invincibility about him. He hopes to regain part of himself in destroying his uncle, however, he is already lost to his own fear and insanity. The concept of blood is important throughout the play, both in literal form in showing the brutality of Hamlets actions, and as representative of family. The physical presnece of blood is seen throughout the play in the deaths of even those who do end in bloodshed, like Ophelia;. The final scene in Act V is the bloodiest, with the deaths of Laertes and Hamlet, the wounding of the King, and the poisoning of the Queen. That final scene is also a good example of the power of blood, in the family sense, as Hamlet finally gains resolution in the deception of his uncle and his mothers marriage and Laertes himself is able to avenge his sister and father. However, the concept of family goes much farther back in the play, to the very beginning with the first appearance of the dead king, still linked to his son and the tragedy of his blood, who himself is heard by Hamlet to call for revenge. For Hamlet, the concept of blood is perhaps the most sensitive and the core root to his own madness. A chief source of hurt pride for Hamlet is the marriage of his widowed mother to his uncle. In Hamlets eyes, not only has the new king usurped the role of his dead (murdered) brother but he has also taken over his brothers position in the Queens bed. This is not a difficult idea to understand; Hamlet obviously feels a strong loyalty to his father and to the idea of his own succession. However, Hamlets constant condemnation of the King and Queens marriage being â€Å"incestuous† shows more about Hamlet than his mother, who is constantly condemned by her son for the marriage. The king is Hamlets paternal uncle and therefore, unrelated to the Queen except through the marriage of his deceased brother, Hamlets uncle. Therefore there is no real incest going on between the newly married couple but rather a joining of past and present. Instead Hamlet is showing an intolerance to change, that when divorced of his uncles treachery, is not quite as damning. However, true to the form of the play, the marriage has been built upon the dark deeds of the King. Their marriage is a deceptive continuity, the Queen herself innocent to the dark deeds of the King. She is not wholly innocent, as she ignorantly believes in the innocence of the new King. While she obviously loves her son, in sensing and fearing Hamlets growing restlessness and insanity, she does in a manner turn away from him. Seeing only death in her sons countenance, it is understandable that she would ally herself with the calm presence of the new king. However, there is something of a resolution between mother and son. When the queen drinks the poison, the King has prepared for Hamlet, she joins the ranks of the innocent dead. Like Ophelia, the Queen becomes a kind of martyr to the ulterior motives of royal ascendency and the revenge of her only son. Though the King may have had larger ideas of their marriage, the Queens tragedy seems to be a belief in hope. In remarrying she is hoping to continue her life and in Hamlet she sees hope for her love and affection, even as he rejects her. Without the morality of justice, Hamlets revenge fails to provide any resolution. While death is certainly an end and a recurrent theme throughout the play, the persistence and skewed senses of madness prevent the carnage of the Danish court from representing an absolute ending. Instead, there simply seems to be no one else to truly die, no one else to suffer within this narrative of tragedy. Hamlets madness had acted in a way to bring about the complete destruction of all hed ever held dear, it spent not only the resolve of its master but everything which it touched. The court of Denmark is withered but no longer a prison to Hamlet as he can depart in death as he was never able to in life. Though Hamlet finds his revenge and his end, he does not find true peace. Fueled by his own depression and anxiety, the injured pride of a fallen son, Hamlet instead creates a cycle of violence and fear which in the end even he falls prey to.

Operations Management at Walmart

Operations Management at Walmart The companys originator was Sam Walton. He was born in 1918 at Oklahoma. In 1940, he worked for the prominent retailer, J C Penney. Walton gave up the job and settled on to set up his own retail store. He acquired a store franchise in Arkansas. Offering momentous markdowns on prices, he became triumphant and attained a second store in 3 years. By 1969, Walton had instituted 18 Wal-Mart stores. By late 1970s, the retail chain had ascertained a pharmacy and an auto service center. In 1980s, Wal-Mart sustained to nurture due to colossal customer stipulates in small towns. Wal-Mart was offering low prices, customer contentment assurance, and hours that were pragmatic for the way people wanted to shop. Wal-Mart endured a setback in 1992, when Walton died. But it prolonged its augmentation in the 1990s, focusing on out of the country stores. This unparalleled growth of Wal-Mart is featured to its continued hub on customer necessitates and reducing cost through proficient supply chain manag ement practices. In the early 1970s, Wal-Mart became one of the first retailing companies in the world to integrate its distribution system, ground-breaking the retail hub-and-spoke system. Under the system, goods were centrally arranged, assembled at a gigantic warehouse, known as allocation center (hub), from where they were transmitted to the individual stores (spoke). The hub and spoke system facilitated Wal-Mart to accomplish momentous cost advantages by the centralized purchasing of goods in titanic quantities. Wal-Mart underlined the need to trim down purchasing costs and offer the unsurpassed price to the customer. The company directly acquired from manufacturers, by passing all intermediaries. Supply chain management (SCM) of Wal-Mart is an expanded managing focus that mulls over the amalgamated impression of all the companies engrossed in the fabrication of goods and services, from suppliers to manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers to decisive consumers and afar to dumping and reprocessing. This approach to managing assembly and logistics systems presupposes all companies engaged in the progression of delivering goods to consumers are part of an arrangement, conduit, or supply chain. It includes everything necessitated to gratify customers and includes shaping which products they will purchase, how to create them, and how to transport them. The supply chain philosophy makes certain that customers obtain the precise products at the correct time at a satisfactory price and at the preferred location (Bethany, 2009) Mounting antagonism, intricacy, and geographical extent in the business world have led to this widened reach and continuing up gradations in the capabilities of the personal computer have made the optimization of supply chain performance probable. Electronic mail and the Internet have transfigured interaction and data exchange, facilitating the vital flow of information between the companies in the supply chain. Wal-Mart announced increases in catalog turns, decreases in out-of-stock happenings, and a replacement cycle that has moved from weeks to days to hours. A rudimentary assumption of Wal-Marts supply chain management is to view the system of facilities, progressions, and people that acquire raw materials, renovate them into products, and ultimately assign them to the customer as a chain, rather than a cluster of separates, but somewhat unified tasks. The significance of this incorporation cannot be exaggerated because the links of the chain are the means to achieving the objective. Every company has a supply chain, but not every company administers their supply chain as Wal-Mart for tactical advantage (Charles, 2006) In the midst of Wal-Marts supply chain management, information systems, procedures, attempts, and suggestions are assimilated across all functions of the intact supply chain. Supply chains befall more multifaceted as goods flow from more than one supplier to more than one industrialized and distribution site. The likelihood of outside sources for purposes like gathering and packaging are also alternatives in the chain. The fundamental tasks of Wal-Mart do not modify, regardless of whether or not it observes supply chain management. Suppliers are still entailed to supply material, manufacturing still creates, distribution still delivers, and customers still acquire. All of the customary functions of a company still take place. The definitive difference in a company that administers its supply chain is their focus shifts from what goes on within each of the links, to include the associations between the links. Any disruption to the supply chain connections affects the complete chain. The snowballing supply chain effect of improbability can be seen in this example. Suppose a producer of integrated circuit boards receives a consignment of poor condition silicon. Because the producer is reliant on its supplier for timely consignments, the deprived quality lot results in a shipment impediment to one of its customers. The computer producer is forced to shut down its line because constituent circuit boards are not accessible. As a consequence, computer shipments to Wal-Mart are late. Finally, the customer goes to Wal-Mart to acquire a new computer but is incapable to find the desired brand. Aggravated, the customer settles to buy the product of a opponent. Contemplate too, the timing involved in this procedure. Because of fabrication and hauling lead times, the authentic acknowledgement of the poor quality silicon possibly occurred some months before the customer made a computer possession (Nels on, 2010) An extensive diversity of events occurs in the Wal-Marts supply chain that essentially fickle. Suppliers can make premature or tardy deliveries. Customers can amplify, dwindle, or even call off orders. New-fangled customers can place substantial orders. Apparatus or means of transportation can collapse. Employees can get unwell, go on walkout, and renounce Supplier consignments or manufactured products can have value problems. Earlier, Wal-Mart practiced for insecurity and perked up their levels of customer satisfaction by permitting inventory levels to augment. This is no longer a suitable solution. High inventories interpret to increased carrying costs and jeopardizes of obsolescence that can limit a Wal-Marts suppleness. During the supply chain, array is customarily generated and held at many locations. Any time a segment of that inventory can be trimmed down or eradicated; Wal-Mart lessens costs and enhances productivity. Curbing the length of time it takes to shift a product from one link of the chain to the next also abbreviates the cycle time of the whole chain and thereby increases competitiveness and customer contentment. Low cost stratagem is centered on the capacity of Wal-Mart to manufacture and distribute merchandise of cutthroat quality at inferior costs. Cost leadership strategy is much more than cost reduction initiatives that get lot of eminence in strategic planning and evaluate session of any company as a means to perk up the bottom line of a company by improving its competence. Wal-Mart uses their proficient cost structures to shield their market from the competitors by reacting to competitors move of making in-roads in the market space by plummeting prices. Such imprudent response may make Wal-Mart principally inward spotlighted. Improved way to tactically situation Wal-Mart on the pro of cost is to boost market share by converting from lowest cost producer to lowest cost supplier of products. This way Wal-Mart decodes its cost advantage into price gain for its consumers and thereby advances the market share. The panorama of escalating the market share endows with a huge prospect for the company to influence the economies of scale paired with the hardnosed cost cutting gauges it sketches to accomplish. More the aggressive space it occupies which also connotes that more competitors eradicated more effectual are economies of scale and as a consequence the costs are driven still lesser. When Wal-Mart is able to convert the endeavors of cost reduction into cost advantage for customers the company can be said to be lucratively pursuing low cost leadership strategy. Wal-Mart is one company that incessantly struggles to cut costs and in the market place it has got the representation of supplier of products at the buck prices. This is how Wal-Mart incarcerates the markets and purges the competitors and progresses revenues and market share. Economies of scale and competence form the nucleus around which Wal-Mart implements its strategy. Wal-Mart pursuing cost leadership evaluates each and every commotion along their value chain with competitors and is committed to outshine them. Innovation in Wal-Mart is focused on process augmentations (both incremental and quantum) rather than on artifacts (new product development). In fact companies pursuing cost leadership strategy aim mass markets with established products. The cost leaders today by and large miss out on one imperative aspect. They classically muse on conveying a product of bloodthirsty quality at the lowly cost and pass on part of the cutbacks to customers. They are so fixated with costs and pricing that seldom do they dismember the customer value proposition. This is a forthcoming area that may supply yet another cost reduction prospect and at the same time magnetize prospective customers from an alcove segment. Wal-Mart when it evaluates the value proposition that it proffers adjacent to the characteristics that customers really give significance, novel insights and opportunities may inaugurate. Such a study may disclose some features on which the company may be sustaining ample disbursement and yet the customers do not care about the fastidious facet or facility. Cutting on such frills may be of assistance in improving the bottom line. But cuts on frills accompanied by plunge on factors where companys offering is less than the customers anticipations provides an exceptional prospect for financial prudence and serving augmented value to the customers, which may represent customers from exterior to the current marketplace space, just on the periphery of niche segments. Most admired no frills strategy is followed by Wal-Mart which based its stratagem on clear indulging of the segment of customers it satisfies. All sources consent the underlying focus of supply chain management begins by accepting the customer, their worth, and obligations. This includes internal customers of Wal-Mart and the ultimate customer as well. Wal-Mart must hunt to know accurately what the customer anticipates from the product or service and must then hub their endeavors on summiting these expectations. The procedure of suppliers must be paralleled with the buying progression of the customer. Even functioning measurements must be customer driven, because the conduct of the final customer eventually controls the actions of the intact supply chain (Al Norman, 2004) Another prerequisite is improved information flow. Wal-Mart must spend in the technology that will grant access to better amounts of appropriate information. Information makes it probable to move to more immediate merchandise replacement and permit all parties in the chain to react swiftly to all changes. Information assists the decisions of the supply chain such as assessment and examination of options. Information flow is solution to the visibility of the product as it streams through the supply chain. The elasticity and modification required is often complex for Wal-Mart and their employees. It is however, the capacity to clinch essential changes that will position a company to take benefit of supply chain management. Because the supply chain is a vigorous entity, Wal-Mart is advised to systemize for change. They must foresee confrontation and be prepared to deal with it. Preparing the concepts of supply chain management will assist in this attempt. Furthermore, as with any organization change, the new ideas must be sustained and held by all levels of management of Wal-Mart (John Dicker, 2005) Self checkout machines offer a mechanism for customers to pay for procurements from a retailer without unswerving input to the method by the retailers staff. They are a substitute to the conventional cashier-staffed checkout. . The advantage to the customer is in the lessened checkout time because stores are frequently able to competently run two to six self checkout units where it normally would have had one cashier. Some customers welcome the skill not to have to deal with anyone. Self checkout may create a delusion of confidentiality and anonymity, when in fact the self checkout attendant can follow the progress of customers on all machines via a separate workstation known as a RAP (Remote Attendant Post). The customer pays and dispatches with a receipt at the checkout kiosk. The reliability of the system is preserved through the use of random inspections or RFID. Theft on these services is reduced by a mixture of a high blockade to entry, and infrequent audits of customers shoppi ng, where customers chosen at arbitrary are taken to a specialized till and have their shopping scanned in the customary way

Embryonic Wars Essay -- essays research papers

The specific objective of this major essay is to clarify and summarise the controversial debate concerning the ethical decency of embryonic cloning for therapeutic purposes. This is the form of cloning that is supposedly beneficial to a barrage of medical applications. We will identify the key opposing ethical perspectives such as those of the justification of embryonic research based on the normative theory of consequentialism. This paper will also probe into the relatively brief history of the debate while gauging the particular stumbling blocks of disagreement which bioethicists have arrived at. The topical aspects of therapeutic cloning will be closely studied by weighing the pros and cons and gaining a greater understanding of the present scenario. Formally speaking, embryonic cloning is a technique used by researchers and animal breeders to split a single embryo into two or more embryos that will all have the same genetic information. Some more extreme forms of Embryonic or Therapeutic cloning involve the deliberate creation of an identical twin to be destroyed before implantation in order to make replacement tissues. However, these identical twins are usually only six day old embryos, a minuscule collection of cells without a nervous system. Therapeutically, the notion of cloning is medically significant because cloned individuals at the embryonic stage "share the same immune characteristics as each other" (Harris 26). The possibility of cloning an individual at the embryo stage allows one clone to be used as a cell tissue and organ bank for the other. Embryonic cloning has a history of significant developments and discoveries that have occurred only in the past ten or twenty years. In the nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties, sophisticated foetal and embryological research was banned by the United States’ Reagan and Bush administrations due to pressure from pro-life factions of the Republican party. However, these regulations against research into the controversial field were relaxed considerably with the inception of the more pro-choice Clinton administration. In October 1994, Robert J. Stillman shocked the world with the news of his successful "cloning of seventeen flawed human embryos at George Washington Medical Center" (Dyson & Harris 276) in the United States. Events such as this have continued to spark furiou... ...ead the developed nations to gain a proficient understanding of the realistic positive and negative possibilities of therapeutic cloning in the near future. This will, in time, generate the global legislations giving much needed ethical and humane boundaries to a field which is yet to be conquered. Works Referenced & Consulted Dyson, A. & Harris J. Eds. "Experiments on embryos" London, New York: Routledge, 1990. Harris, J. Chapter 1: "The Art of the Possible", in Clones, Genes and Immortality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hyde, Margaret O. & Hyde, Lawrence E. "Cloning and the new genetics" Hillside, N.J., U.S.A.: Enslow Publishers, 1984. Lord, B. I., Potten, C. S., Cole, R. J. "Stem cells and tissue homeostasis", Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Nicholls, Mark, "MATCH, (Movement Against The Cloning of Humans)", in The Tide is Turning, http://www.match.inweb.co.uk/, July 9th, 1999. Pence, Gregory E. "Who's afraid of human cloning?", Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, c1998. Preston, Noel. "Understanding ethics", Leichhardt, N.S.W.: Federation Press, 1996.

Piagets Cognitive Theory Essay -- piaget piagets psychology developme

Psychology Piaget's Cognitive Theory Cognitive development is the development of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Historically, the cognitive development of children has been studied in a variety of ways. The oldest is through intelligence tests. An example of this is the Stanford Binet Intelligence Quotient test. IQ scoring is based on the concept of mental age, according to which the scores of a child of average intelligence match his or her age. IQ tests are widely used in the United States, but they have been criticized for defining intelligence too narrowly. In contrast to the emphasis placed on a child ¡Ã‚ ¦s natural abilities by intelligence testing, learning theory grew out of work by behaviorist researchers such as John Broadus Watson and B.F. Skinner, who argued that children are completely malleable. Learning theory focuses on the role of environmental factors in shaping the intelligence of children, especially o n a child ¡Ã‚ ¦s ability to learn by having certain behaviors rewarded and others discouraged. During the 1920s, a biologist named Jean Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development of children. He caused a new revolution in thinking about how thinking develops. In 1984, Piaget observed that children understand concepts and reason differently at different stages. Piaget stated children's cognitive strategies, which are used to solve problems, reflect an interaction between the child ¡Ã‚ ¦s current developmental stage and experience in the world. Piaget was originally trained in areas of biology and philosophy and considered himself a kinetic epistemologist. He was mainly interested in the biological influences on how we come to know. He believed that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is our ability to do abstract symbolic reasoning. Piaget ¡Ã‚ ¦s theory, first published in 1952, grew out of decades of extensive observation of children, including his own, in their natural environments as opposed to the laboratory experiments of the behaviorists. Although Piaget was interested in how children reacted to their environment, he proposed knowledge as composed of schemas, basic units of knowledge used to organize past experiences and serve as a basis for understanding new ones. Schemas are continually being modified by two complementar... ...ings different from theirs. Furthermore, they can understand situations from the viewpoints of others. Intelligence is characterized by number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, and volume. They can perform logical operations in relation to concrete external objects. They can now decipher their thinking, or focus on more than one dimension of a stimulus at a single time. They cannot solve abstract or hypothetical problems, however. Piaget ¡Ã‚ ¦s fourth and final stage, the formal operations stage, takes place from 11 or 12 to 18 and beyond. In early adolescent years, the development of the ability to reversibility and conservation to abstract, verbal, and hypothetical situations takes place. They also begin to make speculations about what might happen in the future. Adolescents are also capable of formulating and testing hypotheses, and dealing with abstract concepts like probability, ratio, and proportion. In this stage start the perception of analogies and the use of complex language forms such as metaphors and sarcasm. Teenagers can comprehend philosophy and politics and formulate theories of their own. Abstract concepts and moral values become as important as concrete objects.

Part Five Chapter IV

IV A misty blue sky stretched like a dome over Pagford and the Fields. Dawn light shone upon the old stone war memorial in the Square, on the cracked concrete faà §ades of Foley Road, and turned the white walls of Hilltop House pale gold. As Ruth Price climbed into her car ready for another long shift at the hospital, she looked down at the River Orr, shining like a silver ribbon in the distance, and felt how completely unjust it was that somebody else would soon have her house and her view. A mile below, in Church Row, Samantha Mollison was still sound asleep in the spare bedroom. There was no lock on the door, but she had barricaded it with an armchair before collapsing, semi-dressed, onto the bed. The beginnings of a vicious headache disturbed her slumber, and the sliver of sunshine that had penetrated the gap in the curtains fell like a laser beam across the corner of one eye. She twitched a little, in the depths of her dry-mouthed, anxious half-sleep, and her dreams were guilty and strange. Downstairs, among the clean, bright surfaces of the kitchen, Miles sat bolt upright and alone with an untouched mug of tea in front of him, staring at the fridge, and stumbling again, in his mind's eye, upon his drunken wife locked in the embrace of a sixteen-year-old schoolboy. Howard Mollison was sleeping soundly and happily in his double bed. The patterned curtains dappled him with pink petals and protected him from a rude awakening, but his rattling wheezing snores had roused his wife. Shirley was eating toast and drinking coffee in the kitchen, wearing her glasses and her candlewick dressing gown. She visualized Maureen swaying arm in arm with her husband in the village hall and experienced a concentrated loathing that took the taste from every mouthful. In the Smithy, a few miles outside Pagford, Gavin Hughes soaped himself under a hot shower and wondered why he had never had the courage of other men, and how they managed to make the right choices among almost infinite alternatives. There was a yearning inside him for a life he had glimpsed but never tasted, yet he was afraid. Choice was dangerous: you had to forgo all other possibilities when you chose. Kay Bawden was lying awake and exhausted in bed in Hope Street, listening to the early morning quiet of Pagford and watching Gaia, who was asleep beside her in the double bed, pale and drained in the early daylight. There was a bucket next to Gaia on the floor, placed there by Kay, who had half carried her daughter from bathroom to bedroom in the early hours, after holding her hair out of the toilet for an hour. ‘Why did you make us come here?' Gaia had wailed, as she choked and retched over the bowl. ‘Get off me. Get off. I fuck – I hate you.' Kay watched the sleeping face and recalled the beautiful little baby who had slept beside her, sixteen years ago. She remembered the tears that Gaia had shed when Kay had split up with Steve, her live-in partner of eight years. Steve had attended Gaia's parents' evenings and taught her to ride a bicycle. Kay remembered the fantasy she had nurtured (with hindsight, as silly as four-year-old Gaia's wish for a unicorn) that she would settle down with Gavin and give Gaia, at last, a permanent stepfather, and a beautiful house in the country. How desperate she had been for a storybook ending, and a life to which Gaia would always want to return; because her daughter's departure was hurtling towards Kay like a meteorite, and she foresaw the loss of Gaia as a calamity that would shatter her world. Kay reached out a hand beneath the duvet and held Gaia's. The feel of the warm flesh that she had accidentally brought into the world made Kay start to weep, quietly, but so violently that the mattress shook. And at the bottom of Church Row, Parminder Jawanda slipped a coat on over her nightdress and took her coffee into the back garden. Sitting in the chilly sunlight on a wooden bench, she saw that it was promising to be a beautiful day, but there seemed to be a blockage between her eyes and her heart. The heavy weight on her chest deadened everything. The news that Miles Mollison had won Barry's seat on the Parish Council had not been a surprise, but on seeing Shirley's neat little announcement on the website, she had known another flicker of that madness that had overtaken her at the last meeting: a desire to attack, superseded almost at once by stifling hopelessness. ‘I'm going to resign from the council,' she told Vikram. ‘What's the point?' ‘But you like it,' he had said. She had liked it when Barry had been there too. It was easy to conjure him up this morning, when everything was quiet and still. A little, ginger-bearded man; she had been taller than him by half a head. She had never felt the slightest physical attraction towards him. What was love, after all? thought Parminder, as a gentle breeze ruffled the tall hedge of leyland cypresses that enclosed the Jawandas' big back lawn. Was it love when somebody filled a space in your life that yawned inside you, once they had gone? I did love laughing, thought Parminder. I really miss laughing. And it was the memory of laughter that, at last, made the tears flow from her eyes. They trickled down her nose and into her coffee, where they made little bullet holes, swiftly erased. She was crying because she never seemed to laugh any more, and also because the previous evening, while they had been listening to the jubilant distant thump of the disco in the church hall, Vikram had said, ‘Why don't we visit Amritsar this summer?' The Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the religion to which he was indifferent. She had known at once what Vikram was doing. Time lay slack and empty on her hands as never before in her life. Neither of them knew what the GMC would decide to do with her, once it had considered her ethical breach towards Howard Mollison. ‘Mandeep says it's a big tourist trap,' she had replied, dismissing Amritsar at a stroke. Sukhvinder had crossed the lawn without Parminder noticing. She was dressed in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Parminder hastily wiped her face and squinted at Sukhvinder, who had her back to the sun. ‘I don't want to go to work today.' Parminder responded at once, in the same spirit of automatic contradiction that had made her turn down Amritsar. ‘You've made a commitment, Sukhvinder.' ‘I don't feel well.' ‘You mean you're tired. You're the one who wanted this job. Now you fulfil your obligations.' ‘But – ‘ ‘You're going to work,' snapped Parminder, and she might have been pronouncing sentence. ‘You're not giving the Mollisons another reason to complain.' After Sukhvinder walked back to the house Parminder felt guilty. She almost called her daughter back, but instead she made a mental note that she must try and find time to sit down with her and talk to her without arguing.

High School Life Essay

High School, well i can only say that it’s the best experience while i am living in this planet, without high school, well, life is a bit of boring. Some person i met tells me that high school is the best, yeah i agree with them high school is the best, you know why i agree with them because today my college life is sucks, i think it’s too much intro, i will tell how my high school life changed me and why it’s one of the best part i’ll never forget. Being High School is the best part in my school days, more friends is the more happiness you experience but there is always an antagonists that will ruined your day and sometimes they are your teachers but not all the teachers some are in other school, i mean when it comes to a contest proving that who’s the best school in your small baryo, and including some of your friends that will not complete their day without teasing you and bullying you. Life through high school is an extraordinary feeling of every teenager that’s goes through it. People say that high school s the most exciting and happiest moments on a student’s life. I actually didn’t believe that before because I was in high school and doing many assignments and projects. I hated doing those because it took away the time that I suppose to be having fun. When I became a senior in high school that’s when I started to think that I guess those people were right. My parents to started to asked me about college and my plans after high school. I used to tell them â€Å"later† because I didn’t want to face the fact that I’m growing up. High school is a world where you no longer be treated as a child. This is the time when girls start to wear make up and boys turns into men. My high school life wasn’t always fun. I remembered those days that stayed up late to study for exams, tests and quizzes and writing research pap ers. It was also the time to meet new friends and build a friendship and shared laughter, cried together and had our moments.

Deception Point Page 55

A leviathan was rising from the water beside the iceberg, breaching the surface with an ominous hiss. Like some mythical sea monster, it came-sleek, black, and lethal, with water foaming around it. Tolland forced himself to blink his eyes. His vision cleared slightly. The beast was close, bumping up against the ice like a huge shark butting a small boat. Massive, it towered before him, its skin shimmering and wet. As the hazy image went black, all that was left were the sounds. Metal on metal. Teeth gnashing at the ice. Coming closer. Dragging bodies away. Rachel†¦ Tolland felt himself being grabbed roughly. And then everything went blank. 64 Gabrielle Ashe was at a full jog when she entered the third-floor production room of ABC News. Even so, she was moving slower than everyone else in the room. The intensity in production was at a fever pitch twenty-four hours a day, but at the moment the cubicle grid in front of her looked like the stock exchange on speed. Wild-eyed editors screamed to one another over the tops of their compartments, fax-waving reporters darted from cubicle to cubicle comparing notes, and frantic interns inhaled Snickers and Mountain Dew between errands. Gabrielle had come to ABC to see Yolanda Cole. Usually Yolanda could be found in production's high-rent district-the glass-walled private offices reserved for the decision makers who actually required some quiet to think. Tonight, however, Yolanda was out on the floor, in the thick of it. When she saw Gabrielle, she let out her usual shriek of exuberance. â€Å"Gabs!† Yolanda was wearing a batik body-wrap and tortoiseshell glasses. As always, several pounds of garish costume jewelry were draped off her like tinsel. Yolanda waddled over, waving. â€Å"Hug!† Yolanda Cole had been a content editor with ABC News in Washington for sixteen years. A freckle-faced Pole, Yolanda was a squat, balding woman whom everyone affectionately called â€Å"Mother.† Her matronly presence and good humor disguised a street-savvy ruthlessness for getting the story. Gabrielle had met Yolanda at a Women in Politics mentoring seminar she'd attended shortly after her arrival in Washington. They'd chatted about Gabrielle's background, the challenges of being a woman in D.C., and finally about Elvis Presley-a passion they were surprised to discover they shared. Yolanda had taken Gabrielle under her wing and helped her make connections. Gabrielle still stopped by every month or so to say hello. Gabrielle gave her a big hug, Yolanda's enthusiasm already lifting her spirits. Yolanda stepped back and looked Gabrielle over. â€Å"You look like you aged a hundred years, girl! What happened to you?† Gabrielle lowered her voice. â€Å"I'm in trouble, Yolanda.† â€Å"That's not the word on the street. Sounds like your man is on the rise.† â€Å"Is there some place we can talk in private?† â€Å"Bad timing, honey. The President is holding a press conference in about half an hour, and we still haven't a clue what it's all about. I've got to line up expert commentary, and I'm flying blind.† â€Å"I know what the press conference is about.† Yolanda lowered her glasses, looking skeptical. â€Å"Gabrielle, our correspondent inside the White House is in the dark on this one. You say Sexton's campaign has advance knowledge?† â€Å"No, I'm saying I have advance knowledge. Give me five minutes. I'll tell you everything.† Yolanda glanced down at the red White House envelope in Gabrielle's hand. â€Å"That's a White House internal. Where'd you get that?† â€Å"In a private meeting with Marjorie Tench this afternoon.† Yolanda stared a long moment. â€Å"Follow me.† Inside the privacy of Yolanda's glass-walled cubicle, Gabrielle confided in her trusted friend, confessing to a one-night affair with Sexton and the fact that Tench had photographic evidence. Yolanda smiled broadly and shook her head laughing. Apparently she had been in Washington journalism so long that nothing shocked her. â€Å"Oh, Gabs, I had a hunch you and Sexton had probably hooked up. Not surprising. He's got a reputation, and you're a pretty girl. Too bad about the photos. I wouldn't worry about it, though.† Don't worry about it? Gabrielle explained that Tench had accused Sexton of taking illegal bribes from space companies and that Gabrielle had just overheard a secret SFF meeting confirming that fact! Again Yolanda's expression conveyed little surprise or concern-until Gabrielle told her what she was thinking of doing about it. Yolanda now looked troubled. â€Å"Gabrielle, if you want to hand over a legal document saying you slept with a U.S. senator and stood by while he lied about it, that's your business. But I'm telling you, it's a very bad move for you. You need to think long and hard about what it could mean for you.† â€Å"You're not listening. I don't have that kind of time!† â€Å"I am listening, and sweetheart, whether or not the clock is ticking, there are certain things you just do not do. You do not sell out a U.S. senator in a sex scandal. It's suicide. I'm telling you, girl, if you take down a presidential candidate, you better get in your car and drive as far from D.C. as possible. You'll be a marked woman. A lot of people spend a lot of money to put candidates at the top. There's big finances and power at stake here-the kind of power people kill for.† Gabrielle fell silent now. â€Å"Personally,† Yolanda said, â€Å"I think Tench was leaning on you in hopes you'd panic and do something dumb-like bail out and confess to the affair.† Yolanda pointed to the red envelope in Gabrielle's hands. â€Å"Those shots of you and Sexton don't mean squat unless you or Sexton admit they're accurate. The White House knows if they leak those photos, Sexton will just claim they're phony and throw them back in the president's face.† â€Å"I thought of that, but still the campaign finance bribery issue is-â€Å" â€Å"Honey, think about it. If the White House hasn't gone public yet with bribery allegations, they probably don't intend to. The President is pretty serious about no negative campaigning. My guess is he decided to save an aerospace industry scandal and sent Tench after you with a bluff in hopes he might scare you out of hiding on the sex thing. Make you stab your candidate in the back.† Gabrielle considered it. Yolanda was making sense, and yet something still felt odd. Gabrielle pointed through the glass at the bustling news room. â€Å"Yolanda, you guys are gearing up for a big presidential press conference. If the President is not going public about bribery or sex, what's it all about?† Yolanda looked stunned. â€Å"Hold on. You think this press conference is about you and Sexton?† â€Å"Or the bribery. Or both. Tench told me I had until eight tonight to sign a confession or else the President was going to announce-â€Å" Yolanda's laughter shook the entire glass cubicle. â€Å"Oh please! Wait! You're killing me!† Gabrielle was in no mood for joking. â€Å"What!† â€Å"Gabs, listen,† Yolanda managed, between laughs, â€Å"trust me on this. I've been dealing with the White House for sixteen years, and there's no way Zach Herney has called together the global media to tell them he suspects Senator Sexton is accepting shady campaign financing or sleeping with you. That's the kind of information you leak. Presidents don't gain popularity by interrupting regularly scheduled programming to bitch and moan about sex or alleged infractions of cloudy campaign finance laws.† â€Å"Cloudy?† Gabrielle snapped. â€Å"Flat out selling your decision on a space bill for millions in ad money is hardly a cloudy issue!† â€Å"Are you sure that's what he is doing?† Yolanda's tone hardened now. â€Å"Are you sure enough to drop your skirt on national TV? Think about it. It takes a lot of alliances to get anything done these days, and campaign finance is complex stuff. Maybe Sexton's meeting was perfectly legal.†